Last Name 1 Student's Name Writing 39B Instructor's Name Date ...

Last Name 1
Student’s Name
Writing 39B
Instructor’s Name
Date
How to Be Cool
My RIP project is a horatian satire of the stereotypical version of “cool” in high school,
which is characterized by slouching in chairs, acting indifferent, and behaving in a mundane
way. I feel that a desire to be cool is faulty--it is a desire to be uninteresting and unfriendly. In
my project, I expose and mock this desire in hopes that it will point readers in the direction of a
better attitude: being friendly, open, and expressive of one’s individuality. My project is a comic
book guide designed for high school students entitled “How to Be Cool: A High Schooler’s
Guide.” The genre is comedy, and I created it as something that might be available to high
school students online. I used the comic book “Sunny Side Down” by Lev Yilmaz as a model
text. In my project I make use of persona and contrasting illustrations to portray to my readers
that individuality is more valuable than being cool.
I find Yilmaz’s style appealing and loved the variety within his book “Sunny Side
Down.” Some of his pages are mainly text, some mainly drawings, and some a well-balanced
combination. Some topics in his book spanned through several pages and others filled only a
page, but every topic was linked together by a consistent theme, color scheme, and art style. I
had many different aspects of a cool person’s attitude in mind when brainstorming my project, so
utilizing the same comic style as Yilmaz was very beneficial. The style allowed me to jump from

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topic to topic, such as from attitude to hairstyle, with ease. It also gave me freedom to comment
on each topic in the way I saw fit; I was not constrained to a consistent layout or ratio of text to
art.
In order to appeal to high school students and help get my message across, I used a
catchy color scheme, sloppy fonts, and simple art. I selected a bright and eye-catching color
scheme that I felt would contrast nicely with the images of cool people within the book—making
them look dull by contrast. I also felt the colors were overly cheery and added to the guide’s
enthusiasm, which teenagers could relate to the overly-optimistic inspirational posters popular at
elementary and high schools. Though my guide may be similar to these posters by sharing the
theme of “be yourself,” high school posters preach this topic by stressing the benefits of
expressing yourself. However, I aim to persuade the reader to be an individual by poking fun at
those who aren’t. I do this by sarcastically advising the reader on how to be a stereotypical cool
person. This contrast between the cheerful optimism of an inspirational poster and directions on
how to be stereotypical, mundane, and smug adds to the guide’s comedy and appeals to
teenagers because it also mocks the inspirational advice they’ve grown up with and likely roll
their eyes at. For much of the text in my guide I chose a hand drawn look. The title is in hand
drawn lettering, much like the movies “Juno,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” and “Nick and
Norah’s Infinite Playlist” which are aimed towards teen audiences and had similar lettering. The
text within the guide is a hand drawn style as well. I felt that a standard font would be associated
with textbooks and academic writing, so to avoid this relation I chose a casual, sloppier font.
This will appeal to my audience because it sends the message that this guide is meant for casual
entertainment, which most teenagers will prefer to a text that appears educational or that appears
to take a high degree of focus to read and understand. My art is also simple, with limited shading

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and details. High school students can associate this with internet comics or other simple, easy to
understand formats.
In “How to Be Cool” I utilize dual personas to expose faults within a cool person’s
attitude. Throughout the guide, my persona has a very instructive and knowledgeable tone and
gives advice on how to be cool, yet at times I have inserted my own comments, which are much
more direct attacks on the attitude of a cool person than the persona’s instructions. This is similar
to Jonathan Swift’s technique within “A Modest Proposal.” Though most of the proposal was
written in the voice of Swift’s persona, there are times at which Swift intrudes to make more
cutting attacks. My persona advocates being cool, yet my own comments expose the attitude’s
hypocrisy or faults. On the page entitled “People You Dislike,” for example, my persona is
providing information about what groups of people to dislike and why. Yet after the listing of
“the openly gay” I have inserted my own comment, “They are much too comfortable with
themselves, a luxury you can’t enjoy.” This comment is a direct stab at the cool attitude,
suggesting that cool people dislike groups which express themselves freely because cool people
are jealous that they don’t have a similar level of comfort. In another example, on the page
“Expert Advice,” my persona provides a quote from an imaginary character, Joe, who complains
about the inconvenience of heavy textbooks. He then complains that rolling backpacks are
“dorky” and advices, “If you’re cool, you will demonstrate your disapproval* of this
‘convenience’ [rolling backpacks].” Joe feels that heavy textbooks required for class are
inconvenient, but later in an illustration kicks a rolling backpack because it is dorky. However,
rolling backpacks are a realistic solution to the very thing he is complaining about—the
inconvenience of heavy textbooks. So, within Joe’s quote I added an asterisk after “disapproval”
which led to my own commentary: “possible jealousy of convenience.” My comment makes a

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point of Joe’s hypocrisy and suggests that the true motive for disapproval of rolling backpacks is
that a cool person wouldn’t be confident enough to make use of one him or herself. A high
school student can relate to these examples because homosexuality is currently a popular
controversy in high schools and rolling backpacks are something generally understood as
“uncool.”
I also use contrasting illustrations to magnify the effect of a cool attitude on a person.
Throughout the guide, the cool people are drawn in dull colors that do not stand out. This
contrasts with the images of the non-cool students, who vary greatly in colors of clothing. This is
to emphasize that an attitude which advocates being disinterested in turn makes the person
uninteresting. Furthermore, in the majority of the illustrations, the cool person is expressing
boredom, smugness, or unhappiness, while other people are joyful and expressive. The cool
people are unexpressive because they are instructed by their stereotype to be this way, yet I
chose to make others very expressive to make it look like being an individual, friendly, and
interested was more fun and exciting than being cool. An example of this contrast can be seen on
the first and last pages of the guide. When the guide begins, an excited character in bright clothes
has his arms thrown up in anticipation of learning to be cool. Yet, on the last couple pages, the
character is shown again with a calmer hairstyle, an unhappy expression, crossed arms, and dull
clothes. With this contrast I displayed how much less appealing the character was once he
became cool, and on the final page he tellingly wonders, “Is it cool to miss the uncool me”
I am not only very relieved to be done with my project, but I am very glad I did it. For
several years I have been interested in learning how to design images on Photoshop, but I never
had the motivation to do it. I knew I wanted my project to be paper comic book, and I quickly
realized that if I wanted it to look professional, I had to ditch the colored pencils and design my

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pages digitally. My goal for this project forced me to put up with the frustration and difficulties
of figuring out Photoshop, and now I have basic knowledge that I can build on in the future. I
was also concerned that I wouldn’t have time to finish this project, but somehow it all fell
together just in time. Although it’s not perfect, I am fairly proud of my final product and hope
that it marks the beginning of more digital artistic creations in my future.